The Young Fur Traders

The room itself was small, and lighted by two little windows, which opened into the courtyard. The entire apartment was made of wood. The floor was of unpainted fir boards. The walls were of the same material, painted blue from the floor upwards to about three feet, where the blue was unceremoniously stopped short by a stripe of bright red, above which the somewhat fanciful decorator had laid on a coat of pale yellow; and the ceiling, by way of variety, was of a deep ochre. As the occupants of Red River office were, however, addicted to the use of tobacco and tallow candies, the original colour of the ceiling had vanished entirely, and that of the walls had considerably changed.

There were three doors in the room (besides the door of entrance), each opening into another apartment, where the three clerks were wont to court the favour of Morpheus after the labours of the day. No carpets graced the floors of any of these rooms, and with the exception of the paint aforementioned, no ornament whatever broke the pleasing uniformity of the scene. This was compensated, however, to some extent by several scarlet sashes, bright-coloured shot-belts, and gay portions of winter costume, peculiar to the country, which depended from sundry nails in the bedroom walls; and as the three doors always stood open, these objects, together with one or two fowling-pieces and canoe-paddles, formed quite a brilliant and highly suggestive background to the otherwise sombre picture. A large open fireplace stood in one corner of the room, devoid of a grate, and so constructed that large logs of wood might be piled up on end to any extent. And really the fires made in this manner, and in this individual fireplace, were exquisite beyond description. A wood-fire is a particularly cheerful thing. Those who have never seen one can form but a faint idea of its splendour; especially on a sharp winter night in the arctic regions, where the thermometer falls to forty degrees below zero, without inducing the inhabitants to suppose that the world has reached its conclusion. The billets are usually piled up on end, so that the flames rise and twine round them with a fierce intensity that causes them to crack and sputter cheerfully, sending innumerable sparks of fire into the room, and throwing out a rich glow of brilliant light that warms a man even to look at it, and renders candles quite unnecessary.

The clerks who inhabited this counting-room were, like itself, peculiar. There were three—corresponding to the bedrooms. The senior was a tall, broad-shouldered, muscular man—a Scotchman—very good-humoured, yet a man whose under-lip met the upper with that peculiar degree of precision that indicated the presence of other qualities besides that of good-humour. He was book-keeper and accountant, and managed the affairs entrusted to his care with the same dogged perseverance with which he would have led an expedition of discovery to the North Pole. He was thirty or thereabouts.

The second was a small man—also a Scotchman. It is curious to note how numerous Scotchmen are in the wilds of North America. This specimen was diminutive and sharp. Moreover, he played the flute—an accomplishment of which he was so proud that he ordered out from England a flute of ebony, so elaborately enriched with silver keys that one’s fingers ached to behold it. This beautiful instrument, like most other instruments of a delicate nature, found the climate too much for its constitution, and, soon after the winter began, split from top to bottom. Peter Mactavish, however, was a genius by nature, and a mechanical genius by tendency; so that, instead of giving way to despair, he laboriously bound the flute together with waxed thread, which, although it could not restore it to its pristine elegance, enabled him to play with great effect sundry doleful airs, whose influence, when performed at night, usually sent his companions to sleep, or, failing this, drove them to distraction.

The third inhabitant of the office was a ruddy, smooth-chinned youth of about fourteen, who had left home seven months before, in the hope of gratifying a desire to lead a wild life, which he had entertained ever since he read “Jack the Giant Killer,” and found himself most unexpectedly fastened, during the greater part of each day, to a stool. His name was Harry Somerville, and a fine, cheerful little fellow he was, full of spirits, and curiously addicted to poking and arranging the fire at least every ten minutes—a propensity which tested the forbearance of the senior clerk rather severely, and would have surprised any one not aware of poor Harry’s incurable antipathy to the desk, and the yearning desire with which he longed for physical action.

Harry was busily engaged with the refractory fire when Charley, as stated at the conclusion of the last chapter, burst into the room.

“Hollo!” he exclaimed, suspending his operations for a moment, “what’s up?”

“Nothing,” said Charley, “but father’s temper, that’s all. He gave me a splendid description of his life in the woods, and then threw his pipe at me because I admired it too much.”

“Ho!” exclaimed Harry, making a vigorous thrust at the fire, “then you’ve no chance now.”

“No chance! what do you mean?”

“Only that we are to have a wolf-hunt in the plains tomorrow; and if you’ve aggravated your father, he’ll be taking you home to-night, that’s all.”

“Oh! no fear of that,” said Charley, with a look that seemed to imply that there was very great fear of “that,”—much more, in fact, than he was willing to admit even to himself. “My dear old father never keeps his anger long. I’m sure that he’ll be all right again in half an hour.”

“Hope so, but doubt it I do,” said Harry, making another deadly poke at the fire, and returning, with a deep sigh, to his stool.

“Would you like to go with us, Charley?” said the senior clerk, laying down his pen and turning round on his chair (the senior clerk never sat on a stool) with a benign smile.

“Oh, very, very much indeed,” cried Charley; “but even should father agree to stay all night at the fort, I have no horse, and I’m sure he would not let me have the mare after what I did to-day.”

“Do you think he’s not open to persuasion?” said the senior clerk.

“No, I’m sure he’s not.”

“Well, well, it don’t much signify; perhaps we can mount you.” (Charley’s face brightened.) “Go,” he continued, addressing Harry Somerville—“go, tell Tom Whyte I wish to speak to him.”

Harry sprang from his stool with a suddenness and vigour that might have justified the belief that he had been fixed to it by means of a powerful spring, which had been set free with a sharp recoil, and shot him out at the door, for he disappeared in a trice. In a few minutes he returned, followed by the groom Tom Whyte.

“Tom,” said the senior clerk, “do you think we could manage to mount Charley to-morrow?”

“Why, sir, I don’t think as how we could. There ain’t an ’oss in the stable except them wot’s required and them wot’s badly.”

“Couldn’t he have the brown pony?” suggested the senior clerk.

Tom Whyte was a cockney and an old soldier, and stood so bolt upright that it seemed quite a marvel how the words ever managed to climb up the steep ascent of his throat, and turn the corner so as to get out at his mouth. Perhaps this was the cause of his speaking on all occasions with great deliberation and slowness.

“Why, you see, sir,” he replied, “the brown pony’s got cut under the fetlock of the right hind leg; and I ’ad ’im down to L’Esperance the smith’s, sir, to look at ’im, sir; and he says to me, says he, ‘That don’t look well, that ’oss don’t,’—and he’s a knowing feller, sir, is L’Esperance, though he is an ’alf-breed—”

“Never mind what he said, Tom,” interrupted the senior clerk; “is the pony fit for use? that’s the question.”

“No, sir, ’e hain’t.”

“And the black mare, can he not have that?”

“No, sir; Mr Grant is to ride ’er to-morrow.”

“That’s unfortunate,” said the senior clerk.—“I fear, Charley, that you’ll need to ride behind Harry on his gray pony. It wouldn’t improve his speed, to be sure, having two on his back; but then he’s so like a pig in his movements at any rate, I don’t think it would spoil his pace much.”

“Could he not try the new horse?” he continued, turning to the groom.

“The noo ’oss, sir! he might as well try to ride a mad buffalo bull, sir. He’s quite a young colt, sir, only ’alf broke—kicks like a windmill, sir, and’s got an ’ead like a steam-engine; ’e couldn’t ’old ’im in no’ow, sir. I ’ad ’im down to the smith t’other day, sir, an’ says ’e to me, says ’e, ‘That’s a screamer, that is.’ ‘Yes,’ says I, ‘that his a fact.’ ‘Well,’ says ’e—”

“Hang the smith!” cried the senior clerk, losing all patience; “can’t you answer me without so much talk? Is the horse too wild to ride?”

“Yes, sir, ’e is,” said the groom, with a look of slightly offended dignity, and drawing himself up—if we may use such an expression to one who was always drawn up to such an extent that he seemed to be just balanced on his heels, and required only a gentle push to lay him flat on his back.

“Oh, I have it!” cried Peter Mactavish, who had been standing during the conversation with his back to the fire, and a short pipe in his mouth: “John Fowler, the miller, has just purchased a new pony. I’m told it’s an old buffalo-runner, and I’m certain he would lend it to Charley at once.”

“The very thing,” said the senior clerk.—“Run, Tom; give the miller my compliments, and beg the loan of his horse for Charley Kennedy.—I think he knows you, Charley?”

The dinner-bell rang as the groom departed, and the clerks prepared for their mid-day meal.

The senior clerk’s order to “run” was a mere form of speech, intended to indicate that haste was desirable. No man imagined for a moment that Tom Whyte could by any possibility run. He hadn’t run since he was dismissed from the army, twenty years before, for incurable drunkenness; and most of Tom’s friends entertained the belief that if he ever attempted to run he would crack all over, and go to pieces like a disentombed Egyptian mummy. Tom therefore walked off to the row of buildings inhabited by the men, where he sat down on a bench in front of his bed, and proceeded leisurely to fill his pipe.

The room in which he sat was a fair specimen of the dwellings devoted to the employés of the Hudson’s Bay Company throughout the country. It was large, and low in the roof, built entirely of wood, which was unpainted; a matter, however, of no consequence, as, from long exposure to dust and tobacco-smoke, the floor, walls, and ceiling had become one deep, uniform brown. The men’s berths were constructed after the fashion of berths on board ship, being wooden boxes ranged in tiers round the room. Several tables and benches were strewn miscellaneously about the floor, in the centre of which stood a large double iron stove, with the word “Carron” stamped on it. This served at once for cooking, and warming the place. Numerous guns, axes, and canoe-paddles hung round the walls or were piled in corners, and the rafters sustained a miscellaneous mass of materials, the more conspicuous among which were snow-shoes, dog-sledges, axe handles, and nets.

Having filled and lighted his pipe, Tom Whyte thrust his hands into his deerskin mittens, and sauntered off to perform his errand.

Chapter Four.

A wolf-hunt in the prairies—Charley astonishes his father, and breaks in the “noo ’oss” effectually

During the long winter that reigns in the northern regions of America, the thermometer ranges, for many months together, from zero down to 20, 30, and 40 degrees below it. In different parts of the country the intensity of the frost varies a little, but not sufficiently to make any appreciable change in one’s sensation of cold. At York Fort, on the shores of Hudson’s Bay, where the winter is eight months long, the spirit-of-wine (mercury being useless in so cold a climate) sometimes falls so low as 50 degrees below zero; and away in the regions of Great Bear Lake it has been known to fall considerably lower than 60 degrees below zero of Fahrenheit. Cold of such intensity, of course, produces many curious and interesting effects, which, although scarcely noticed by the inhabitants, make a strong impression upon the minds of those who visit the country for the first time. A youth goes out to walk on one of the first sharp, frosty mornings. His locks are brown and his face ruddy. In half an hour he returns with his face blue, his nose frost-bitten, and his locks white—the latter effect being produced by his breath congealing on his hair and breast, until both are covered with hoar-frost. Perhaps he is of a sceptical nature, prejudiced, it may be, in favour of old habits and customs; so that, although told by those who ought to know that it is absolutely necessary to wear moccasins in winter, he prefers the leather boots to which he has been accustomed at home, and goes out with them accordingly. In a few minutes the feet begin to lose sensation. First the toes, as far as feeling goes, vanish; then the heels depart, and he feels the extraordinary and peculiar and altogether disagreeable sensation of one who has had his heels and toes amputated, and is walking about on his insteps. Soon, however, these also fade away, and the unhappy youth rushes frantically home on the stumps of his anklebones—at least so it appears to him, and so in reality it would turn out to be if he did not speedily rub the benumbed appendages into vitality again.

The whole country during this season is buried in snow, and the prairies of Red River present the appearance of a sea of the purest white for five or six months of the year. Impelled by hunger, troops of prairie wolves prowl round the settlement, safe from the assault of man in consequence of their light weight permitting them to scamper away on the surface of the snow, into which man or horse, from their greater weight, would sink, so as to render pursuit either fearfully laborious or altogether impossible. In spring, however, when the first thaws begin to take place, and commence that delightful process of disruption which introduces this charming season of the year, the relative position of wolf and man is reversed. The snow becomes suddenly soft, so that the short legs of the wolf, sinking deep into it, fail to reach the solid ground below, and he is obliged to drag heavily along; while the long legs of the horse enable him to plunge through and dash aside the snow at a rate which, although not very fleet, is sufficient, nevertheless, to overtake the chase and give his rider a chance of shooting it. The inhabitants of Red River are not much addicted to this sport, but the gentlemen of the Hudson’s Bay Service sometimes practise it; and it was to a hunt of this description that our young friend Charley Kennedy was now so anxious to go.

The morning was propitious. The sun blazed in dazzling splendour in a sky of deep, unclouded blue, while the white prairie glittered as if it were a sea of diamonds rolling out in an unbroken sheet from the walls of the fort to the horizon, and on looking at which one experienced all the pleasurable feelings of being out on a calm day on the wide, wide sea, without the disagreeable consequence of being very, very sick.

The thermometer stood at 39 in the shade, and “everythink,” as Tom White emphatically expressed it, “looked like a runnin’ of right away into slush.” That unusual sound, the trickling of water, so inexpressibly grateful to the ears of those who dwell in frosty climes, was heard all around, as the heavy masses of snow on the housetops sent a few adventurous drops gliding down the icicles which depended from the ewes and gables; and there was a balmy softness in the air that told of coming spring. Nature, in fact, seemed to have wakened from her long nap, and was beginning to think of getting up. Like people, however, who venture to delay so long as to think about it, Nature frequently turns round and goes to sleep again in her icy cradle for a few weeks after the first awakening.

The scene in the courtyard of Fort Garry harmonised with the cheerful spirit of the morning. Tom Whyte, with that upright solemnity which constituted one of his characteristic features, was standing in the centre of a group of horses, whose energy he endeavoured to restrain with the help of a small Indian boy, to whom meanwhile he imparted a variety of useful and otherwise unattainable information.

“You see, Joseph,” said he to the urchin, who gazed gravely in his face with a pair of very large and dark eyes, “ponies is often skittish. Reason why one should be, an’ another not, I can’t comprehend. P’r’aps it’s nat’ral, p’r’aps not, but howsomediver so ’tis; an’ if it’s more nor above the likes o’ me, Joseph, you needn’t be surprised that it’s somethink haltogether beyond you.”

It will not surprise the reader to be told that Joseph made no reply to this speech, having a very imperfect acquaintance with the English language, especially the peculiar dialect of that tongue in which Tom Whyte was wont to express his ideas, when he had any.

He merely gave a grunt, and continued to gaze at Tom’s fishy eyes, which were about as interesting as the face to which they belonged, and that might have been mistaken for almost anything.

“Yes, Joseph,” he continued, “that’s a fact. There’s the noo brown ’oss now, it’s a skittish ’un. And there’s Mr Kennedy’s gray mare, wot’s a standin’ of beside me, she ain’t skittish a bit, though she’s plenty of spirit, and wouldn’t care hanythink for a five-barred gate. Now, wot I want to know is, wot’s the reason why?”